Joomla CMS is one of the most popular together with WordPress and Drupal. And it’s reasonably. Joomla offers a free open-source technical fundament with the helpful built-in features. In addition to that you can install a great variety of plugins to customize the work of the website for your own needs.

Joomla is undoubtedly a perfect choice for those who don’t want to bury themselves in the coding , but need a platform for realization of their ideas through the internet. This fact is supported by the easiness of taking the optimal look by the system of changing templates. And the collection of Joomla themes all over the internet is boundless.

So, how to find a high-quality product in this ocean? It’s obvious, a seeker must contact professionals in this case.

One of the most experience companies in designing Joomla templates is TemplateMonster (monstrous design energy, indeed). And you know what, they’re currently run Joomla Week Promo giving you an opportunity to get any Joomla template 50% OFF, till September 9, 2013.

Information rules contemporary world. Our business tempo is so hasty that sometimes successful career depends on how quickly we can process huge volumes of information. Do you know a great way to present complicated extensive data in simple, easily memorable and digestible way? Of course we talk about interactive charts now. It’s a well know fact that a human mind percepts, handles and memorizes visual data much better than textual one. Charts are used to wrap up sophisticated info into concise visually appealing documents, which let the user catch its essence and the relationships between parts of the data it contains in an instant.

But let’s get a deeper view on the matter, we promise, it will be cognitive.

So, what are interactive charts?

Actually, a chart is a graphical representation of data, where the latter is rendered by means of symbols, like bars, lines, slices, etc. It can be created in the form of a brief sketch on a sheet of paper in a few seconds, just to convey your thought to the partner or with the help of specific computer charting application. Of course, the latter will look more impressive and eye candy, but both variants will serve the same purpose – to ease and speed up the understanding of your thoughts, concepts, ideas and statistics. As you realize, it’s impossible to draw an interactive chart on paper. Such graphs are created with the help of special software, which makes them extremely dynamic because each element responds viewer’s action. Needless to say, that the experience with an interactive chart is much more engaging as all those visual effects encourage the user to continue investigation.

What can be represented by interactive charts?

An interactive chart can represent a great variety of numeric or qualitative data in a highly organized manner. Such charts are also called diagrams or graphs. Some nautical and aeronautical maps are also called charts. The term chart is also used for domain specific constructs, music notations and album records popularity.

By the way, interactive charts are often used in infographics design. Actually, it won’t be a great mistake to say that infographics almost fully consist of charts, different types of them, most of which are interactive to raise users’ interest.

As you see, charts have really varied spheres of application. If should be mentioned that different types of charts are suitable for presenting certain kinds of information. For instance: percentage data is much easier to understand when presented in a horizontal bar chart. Numerical data that shows changing over a period of time is better to present in a line chart.

Interactive charts can have absolutely different forms; however, they all have something in common. First of all, the data in any chart is represented graphically, that is, with the help of images due to the specific human mind ability we’ve mentioned before. Of course, text is also used, but it doesn’t play the leading part here. It just accompanies and explains the pictures. For instance, each interactive chart (as well as the static one) has its title, which makes the viewer understand what it’s all about or what the data in the graph refers to. There are some more features similar to all charts, but we won’t bore you with extra unnecessary details and skip to the most sipid part of our article.

Types of interactive charts illustrated by lovely examples

Actually, there are dozens of chart types, but we will try to cover the most frequently used ones. Here they follow:

jQuery is a wonderful tool for those who need to build a website efficiently. This library for JavaScript gives an opportunity to use the finished plugins. This feature simplifies the process, so you don’t need to waste time for HTML scripting.

Being the most popular JS library, jQuery can offer a lot of helpful plugins. Some of them can be more actual or less actual. But anyway there is a certain set of the principal things for websites. Yes, I mean jQuery controls, aimed to govern elements and processes. I want to present 10 of them, which I suppose to be in general useful for every jQuery user.

When it comes to force the power of your portable devices or PC, various applications come in handy. You can find a number of them while surfing all around the web and you can try to create the desired one yourself. It is not necessary to have some extra development skills to succeed in it. Of course, you have to know the basics, but you can always address to the well-done tutorials from professionals that will seamlessly guide you through the process and show it in details. After looking through the well-done tutorials you can easily bring the app idea into reality. So, today I’d like to share with you the compilation of such tutorials.

See How to Build an App Fast

How can the help you? They cover the basics of certain programs and provide you with the detailed explanations that show the work from A-Z. If you happen to start working on the application development, don’t forget to check out these tutorials first. They will give you better idea concerning the matter of you interest and provide you with useful tip on how to:
- build Facebook app;

Do you remember what happened to Hansel and Gretel from Brothers Grimm fairy tale? Their breadcrumbs were pecked by birds so they couldn’t find their way home and got lost in the forest. They were so tired, starved and terrified that at first didn’t guess the insidious plans of the wicked witch, who sheltered them in her gingerbread house. This imprudence nearly cost them their lives. But all is well that ends well; the kids have outwitted the vicious crone, grew rich and lived long and happy life with their parents.

We referred to this tale not occasionally as the term breadcrumb navigation has derived directly from it. And if you don’t want your users repeat not too happy beginning of the story about Hansel and Gretel, leave them breadcrumb trail on your web pages as there are no birds in virtual world able to eat them up.

Free Breadcrumb Navigation Elements – Getting Down to Reality

But let’s get more serious and come to the essence of our blog post. As you know, breadcrumbs or breadcrumb trail is a navigation aid used in user interfaces. It allows users keep track of their locations within programs or documents. Breadcrumbs are usually arranged horizontally across the top of a web page, perhaps, below title bars or headers. They provide links back to each previous page the users visited before they reached the current page. Breadcrumbs help the user quickly and easily return to the start or to any point of the passed way.

Actually, there are two types of web breadcrumbs:

Location and attribute. The first ones are static and show the location of the page in the website hierarchy. The latter ones give information that categorizes the current page.

So, what are we trying to say with all these text? No web developer will argue the fact that simple, understandable, user-friendly navigation is extremely important for good website conversion. Due to breadcrumbs, your users keep all navigation steps under control. They always know where they are at the moment and how to come back to previous information. Just agree that the technique is very convenient and time saving.

Below, we offer you some ready-made free breadcrumb navigation elements which can be applied to improve your website navigation and usability. You can download them right now without paying a cent. There is nothing to wait for anymore, please, pick out the most appealing (from your point of view) of these free breadcrumb navigation elements and your visitors will always find their way back to your essential content.

Great websites are achieved when designers have a very clear idea about the purpose of the site, its objectives and where they want to go with it. For this to happen, before you actually begin the process of design, you need to take the web design project through an extensive process of requirements gathering and analysis. Sadly, this is an often overlooked aspect of web design, with designers looking to waste no time in getting started on designing their website. This is a cardinal error because a website is built around a specific purpose. If you do not make an effort to understand what it is and why it’s important for your client, your design won’t be able to deliver its message successfully.

Importance of Requirement Gathering and Analysis in Website Design

Think of your website project as a question, and requirements gathering as a process of finding a solution, and you will realize its importance. When a client briefs you about his website project, you are getting an overview of what the client wants. Your client has a very clear idea about the objectives he wants the website to satisfy. But, for you the designer, just knowing the objectives isn’t enough. You need to look at the project holistically. You will need to ask plenty of questions before you get a very clear and in-depth idea of what the client expects you to deliver. Some of these questions include:

What is the client’s business domain all about?

Who are his competitors?

How are his competitors’ websites?

Who is his target audience?

What are the expectations of this target audience vis-à-vis the client’s business?

What are their expectations from your client’s website?

What are their interest and preferences?

What are the performance metrics of your site?

These and many other questions need to be answered before you actually get started on the design process. The answers to these questions will help you conceptualize a design that is both client oriented and user defined. This improves the chances of your website attracting more website traffic and increasing its conversion ratio. The process of requirements gathering and analysis gives you the answers you need.

The process of Requirements Gathering and Analysis in Website Design

Adobe illustrator is a vector based program. The program is a bit complex and needs more time from the learner to become a master. Illustrator supports the undo function. It is common that people do many mistakes during their design phase and want to go back to the previous stage, where undo operation will be highly useful. Keeping this in mind, Adobe Illustrator supports undo functionality and it is one of its best functions. It will be tough to learn and practice illustrator from the start, but you can become a master after some experience. Photoshop deals with pixels, whereas Illustrator deals with lines and algorithms. You can create vector graphics of lines and curves using Adobe Illustrator. If you are experienced in Photoshop, then you will find many similar items in Illustrator. If you are new to Photoshop itself, then it will take more time to get familiar with the features of illustrator.

Using illustrator may be little bit tricky for those who are more comfortable with Photoshop. It will be difficult to find out and realize the difference between Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, but you will get used to it once you are experienced. Fortunately, you can get much help today in the form of free Adobe Illustrator tutorials. Many of these online tutorials are here to help you in understanding the Illustrator better. Generally, people spend a lot of time studying Illustrator, but online tutorials are rather useful to brush up your knowledge on Adobe’s vector application. The following free Adobe Illustrator tutorials will explain you the top techniques used in Adobe Illustrator.

I don’t know what about you, but I’m madly in love with my iPhone(sorry, don’t want to tell the model in order not slip into advertizing). We’ve never parted since I bought it cause I’m completely lost without the gadget. I even made it a present in the form of creative iPhone case, which made its appearance extremely outstanding (if the latter is possible, of course). Do you feel the same about your favorite moby? Actually, mobile phones in general and iPhones in particular became so smart, that they really seized to be simply communication mediums.

Just agree that your iPhone works more like your personal assistant now. Would you like to take a photo or video of some thrilling moment? No problem, just tap the relevant icon at the screen. Do you need to surf the internet straight away, when you are neither at home nor at the office? It’s not an issue either. Browse on the go, chat with friends on Skype, check your e-mails, visit your social accounts, watch TV, read books, listen to music and so on. This list can be continued infinitely. Even your day starts with mobile phone, when it gently wakes you up in the morning by a pleasant ring-tone set on the alarm, which helps you gradually come back from the world of dreams into reality.

However, our today’s blog post is not about numerous iPhone features. Our theme is more relevant to the aesthetic appeal of these indispensable boosters. It’s our strong belief that the unique style of your device is strongly connected with pleasure and satisfaction you get from its usage. Just agree, that custom, visually attractive object, revealing a bit of your personality is much better than a standard appliance you can hardly recognize among several telephones of the same model and color.

Below, we’ve collected 35 creative iPhone cases for designers. They won’t let you stay unnoticed in the crowd. Some of them are inspiring, some are humorous, artistic and even philosophical. We hope you’ll appreciate our choice and maybe even find the one that perfectly fits your own iPhone. In case you don’t share our passion for iPhones, we hope that this easy browsing will just bring a lot of fun and simply cheer you up.

Developers dealing with logo design know quite well how challenging it can be. Customers want their finished logo aka brand identity to be like a catchy tune people can’t get rid of even if they’ve heard it only once. Every now and then, they find themselves humming this simple melody doing the routine work. They want to stop, but it’s too late, the tune got stuck in their convolutions. Common situation, isn’t it?

A good logo should work similar to such intrusive melodies. Seeing it once, people should easily memorize it and then recognize among numerous competitors. Short capacious names, simple shapes and not many colors work best for the purpose.

As you see, logo designers are really pent up in the methods of expression, which extraordinarily complicates the task. It’s not a problem to combine primitive images with short words, of course, but this can’t be considered a solution. Logos are pieces of art, taking special place in the sphere of graphic design. The kernel of the whole matter is that a logo should contain a quintessence of company services, concepts and ideas. Too much for one small design item? Not at all, many expert professionals find the way to cram the extraordinarily sophisticated thoughts into the compact logo design area.

We have already mentioned the involvement of negative space into logo design. The technique is one of the possible options to render deeper meaning through common things. Actually, the method helps to ‘kill two birds with one stone’. Designers reach utmost simplicity, accuracy and clearance simultaneously conveying the most complex company ideas, which sometimes contain a kind of riddles or optical illusions, raising customer’s interest.

In case you would like to specify what we mean by the term negative space, let’s fresh it up in our memory. Negative or white space is all space around and between the letters and images of your design. In simple words, it is a background area, over which all other elements are placed. Of course, negative space is very important at logo design. The developer carefully selects its hue to match the content and make the objects stand out better. But negative space is capable of more than just being a perfect background for something more important. Sometimes, negative space around the object (but not the object itself) forms an artistic shape, which in its turn, is used as a real image. The effect enormously increases user’s interest and negative space logos’ appeal in general.

Herein under we are going to showcase some striking negative space logos, the authors of which were able to tame the idle white space and make it an active participant of the whole design performance. Just agree that all those genius logos would become trivial without the magic touch of negative space component.

Are you satisfied with standard typography solutions? Do you think they perfectly express your creative ideas? Would you like to get the most out of them? You know, there is a good way to make your typography really outstanding. Just agree that when the letters turn, spring, fly, spin, diminish and grow it is difficult to draw your eyes away from this charming sight. Of course we speak about the animated typography now.

What is animated/kinetic typography?

To put this hairy process into simple words, animated typography or moving text is an artistic technique when each typeface character is pre-animated. The result is a kind of mixture of text and motion with the help of video animation effects. The layout becomes extremely dynamic. Text elements, letters and words move relative to each other on 2D or 3D space.

Animated typography can scroll across the screen, recede or advance. The developers usually use Illustrator CS6, Photoshop CS6, After Effects CS6 and similar software to breathe life into the static fonts. We can describe the process the following way: an artist takes a character or a word and starts to add shapes, movement, colors, directions or whatever he/she wants to the static object on the screen. The characters revive and finally begin to move the way their creator wants them to. It goes without saying that the result can be fabulous; it seems that it’s really worth every minute and effort spent on the complex process of animation.

Is the game really worth the candle?

Animated typography is mostly used in any motion graphic design projects like advertising, presentations, videos, movies and television programs. It focuses on the right effect time, having stronger impact on the expressiveness of the text. According to the perceptual psychology research on attention, reading performance and comprehension, it has been found out that time-based presentation of text can be used effectively to capture and manipulate viewer’s attention and in some cases improve overall reading performance.

Positively, kinetic typography has the ability to boost emotional and entertaining coloring of the significant content. The animated text is presented over a certain period of time in a manner intended to attract viewers’ attention and convey or stir particular idea or feeling in their minds. So, we can say that experienced graphic designers with strong After Effects skills can influence people’s perception, making sophisticated concepts more comprehensible, captivating and spectacular.

Now, when you know some of the brief details on animated/kinetic typography creation and usage, we offer you to view some of its exquisite examples and answer the question in the title of this paragraph yourself. Even if you are not going to use animated typography in your projects, these videos are worth your time and attention. Moreover, three small nice goodies are waiting for the most curious of our visitors in the bottom of this entry.